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The Economics of Innovation: Mountaineering and the American Space Program

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The Economics of Innovation: Mountaineering and the American Space Program The Economics of Innovation: Mountaineering and the American Space Program Howard E. McCurdy May, 2013 1 “The Economics of Innovation: Mountaineering and the American Space Program,” a research report submitted by Howard E. McCurdy, Ph.D., School of Public Affairs, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C., 20016, in fulfillment of NASA contract NNX12AQ63G, 11 March 2013; revised and resubmitted, 18 May 2013. Following page: An expedition 8 crewmember on the International Space Station took this photograph of Mt. Everest in 2004. Mt. Everest is 29,035 feet high. Passengers in a commercial jetliner flying over Everest at an altitude of 35,000 feet would be too close to the mountain to experience this view. The photograph is taken from the north. In the foreground appears the Tibetan plateau. To the south, clouds cover much of Nepal. Everest is the darker mountain peak to center right with the perennial cloud plume. The first expeditions attempting to climb the mountain approached from Tibet, traveling up the Rongbuk glacier, turning east, then moving back toward the V­shaped spot below and to the left of the summit. That is the North Col, a low point between Everest and Changtse. From the North Col, climbers proceed up the north ridge to its junction with the wind­swept northeast ridge and from there toward the summit. Most commercial outfitters approach the Everest from Nepal on the mountain’s southern side. This route follows the Western Cwm, visible as the deep cut stretching out to the right of the mountain. Upon reaching the South Col (behind Everest in this photograph), climbers turn north and head directly toward the space station. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Matthew Vanderschuere, a doctoral student at American University, for his assistance in collecting information on the climbs, and Monique Laney, a professorial lecturer at American University, for translation services. 2 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Mt. Everest as Seen From the International Space Station 3 Executive Summary and Findings 5 The Economics of Innovation: Introduction 6 Falling Cost 9 Organizing an Expedition 11 Financing the Expeditions 17 Transition 22 Innovation 25 Summary 36 Tables: American Expedition to Mt. Everest: 1963 (Actual Costs) Summary of Expeditions Examined as a Basis for this Study Cost of Expeditions and Prime Sources of Funding Approximate Cost of Expeditions in 2012 U.S. Dollars Commercial Trips to Mt. Everest: Price per Climber American Expedition to Mt. Everest: 1963 (Sources of Funding) References 51 Notes 53 4 Executive Summary and Findings Mountain climbing in the Himalayas is a risky and expensive activity. Like space exploration, it began with large expeditions in which climbers assembled pyramids of people and material that allowed a few skilled individuals to reach the top of the world. In roughly seventy‐five years, mountain climbing in the Himalayas moved from a phase characterized by large expeditions to a commercial enterprise wherein well‐prepared people paid to go. An activity once thought available only to select parties able to raise vast sums of money became a commercial endeavor. This report examines the history of mountain climbing on Mt. Everest in search of lessons the activity might contain for the process of space exploration. The study is based on reports from twenty‐five expeditions organized by twelve different nations. It identifies the forces of innovation that allowed Everest climbs to move from costly expeditions through a transitional stage to the less expensive commercial era. The report focuses on the means by which each set of trips were financed and organized. Advances in transportation, climbing technology, equipment, communication, knowledge of the terrain, and weather forecasting encouraged the transition from big expeditions to self‐financed commercial climbs. So did the emergence of a lightweight “alpine approach” to mountain climbing and changes in the manner by which local governments regulated the activity. As innovation occurred, the cost of conducting an expedition fell. While cost fell substantially, the price or charge to individual customers fell modestly. The gap between substantial cost reduction and modest price reduction helped to create a commercial market for the activity. The presence of a market encouraged competition which led to further reductions in cost, price, and risk. As in space exploration, early advocates of climbing organized themselves into clubs. Space advocates formed rocket societies, mountaineers formed climbing clubs. Both groups tried to raise money from a variety of sources. Mountaineers were successful; the rocket clubs less so. Government agencies came to dominate the provision of space policy; mountain climbers maintained a mixed funding strategy. As a result, climbing advocates were able to maintain more direct control over the activity to which they were so strongly committed and make the transition to commercialization more easily than advocates of space flight. 5 The Economics of Innovation: Mountaineering and the American Space Program Howard E. McCurdy Many of the people who envisioned the unfolding of space exploration anticipated that it would evolve in a manner akin to similar terrestrial activities. Visionaries often recalled the history of aviation when seeking analogies to explain space exploration. Just as advances in aeronautics made atmospheric flight cheaper, safer, and more accessible to ordinary people, so would advances in astronautics. Commenting on the future of the NASA space shuttle, one NASA planner announced that “by 1990 people will be going on the shuttle routinely—as on an airplane.” 1 Advocates offered the history of other transportation technologies as justification for investments in space. After welcoming the crew of the space shuttle Columbia back to Earth, President Ronald Reagan likened the completion of the space shuttle test program to the driving of the golden spike that marked the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Railroads opened new territories to human settlement and increased national wealth. So would space travel. During the Apollo era, NASA officials encouraged historians to study the transcontinental railroad as an analog to space exploration.2 Advocates of space exploration presented the history of terrestrial exploration as justification for missions beyond. Terrestrial exploration had fueled human creativity and enlarged national power. In a similar way, advocates insisted, space exploration would do the same. Announcing his support for the construction of a large Earth‐orbiting space station, NASA Administrator James Beggs recalled the voyages of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Robert Peary, Richard Byrd, and Charles Lindbergh. The achievements of Christopher Columbus figure prominently in space rhetoric. When President Ronald Reagan’s budget director objected to the cost of the proposed space station, Attorney General William French Smith remarked that Queen Isabella must have heard the same argument from her advisors.3 Based on the concepts contained in these analogies, the people promoting space exploration suggested that it would occur in phases. In the earliest phase, achievements would require vast assemblies of people and material. To build the first large space station, to visit the Moon, to send the first humans to Mars—these activities would require humans to marshal resources on a heroic scale. The expenditures required would far exceed the capacity of the individuals involved. Thousands of people would work so that 6 a few explorers could reach their destinations. The resulting enterprises would resemble vast pyramids of money, people, and material and be waged in the style of military campaigns. In the second phase, technology and knowledge would improve. Advances would occur in areas such as transport, personal equipment, communication, meteorological forecasting, biomedical knowledge, and understanding of the terrain. Most important, costs would begin to fall. Advancing technology and economies of scale would allow people to do more with less, thereby permitting more frequent visitation and a larger human presence in distant places. In the third phase, cost and technology would improve to the point where ordinary people could participate. This was the message contained in the history of aviation, anticipated and realized for atmospheric flight and thereafter promised for space. The promise appears in a wide number of sources, from official government documents to the space colonization movement and more recently the effort to commercialize space.4 To gain insight into the process by which such innovative transitions occur, this report examines the evolution of a terrestrial activity thought to contain analogies to space exploration. The activity in this case is mountain climbing—and more specifically the efforts to ascend the highest point on the surface of the Earth, Mt. Everest. The report investigates whether we can learn something about space exploration and the economics of innovation from the history of mountaineering – whether its cost and difficulty did indeed fall and if so what lessons that history might contain for space travel. The periods characterizing climbing on Everest are analogous to the ones anticipated for space exploration. The first expeditions to Mt. Everest required substantial pyramids of people and material. The cost was high. The expeditionary period began in 1921 as advocates of the venture organized large,
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